Argyris Pedoulakis, head coach for Panathinaikos, stated after the end of the encounter during the Press Conference.
“It was a game with a great deal of tactics in defense…We managed to contain an extremely offensive team at 58 points but we performed quite a bad offensive game during the second half. We paid the cost of exhaustion, we had no freshness in our sprints, Real Madrid enforced pressure on us and we were knocked off our game. We are in a tough group, a tight group something apparent from results in the other games. What we want is to be healthy, train all together and turn around the situation which at the moment is against us”.
When questioned if an explanation exists concerning the only 5 points Panathinaikos got in the fourth quarter, Pedoulakis stated: “The mistakes made are as I mentioned before. Guys who have been sidelined for quite some time in the fourth quarter were unable to get to creations, we also had players with three personal fouls something which resulted in other players getting more time and taking a load on their shoulders, Tsartsaris took a blow during half time, Maciulis got an injection in order to perform, as everybody knows…We failed to have the freshness we needed, we were one-dimensional and we even flunked lay-ups… We are out of energy…These days since no recess occurred in the league the guys are outdone… And we see that in general strange results come up and it is only natural up to a point. There are injured guys and guys who are run down since they were called upon to fill the shoes of those who were sidelined. All this would surface at some point due to consecutive games”.
What must happen next after this result was the answer that Pedoulakis gave next: “What we must do as I mentioned before is to incorporate certain guys who were absent. Sofoklis was already improved; Diamantidis is getting into a competitive pace and outdid himself this evening. Granted that we are all healthy we will be able to bounce back”.
When questioned about Schortsanitis’ time of participation, he stressed: “He is a player who essentially has been a month and a half sidelined. It is quite some time for an athlete and due to his body structure it is not easy for him to recover. His game time must be around 15 minutes and it depends on the opponent. Today he did well, notwithstanding two errors in two rotations at the end. 15 minutes is quite some game time at the Euroleague level. It is not little! We suffered a lot, if you see the damage caused to us by their big men who not only got range but were also the ones to provide their team with second chances, something quite important. We had no freshness at all in offense. Especially after 25’ it seemed that we ran out of gas”.
Real Madrid head coach, Pablo Laso, stated: “I would like to congratulate my players, the team for winning because it was a very important win. To beat Panathinaikos in its home is not a small achievement. It might have not been the best possible game for one to attend but there was lots of tactics and an effort was made in order for the one team to contain the other. I believe it was one of our worst offensive games but we stayed alive in the game praise to defense. It was really important that the players understand that the game would be judged up to the very last minute, as it did. We were very focused and what we wanted was not to allow Panathinaikos get a larger point spread. It is a mighty tough group. On any given day any given team might lose to any given team. We must remaine focused in order to understand that we have accomplished nothing yet. There are still quite a few games ahead in the group”.
